Speaker 1: 0:00

Are we just a few months away from another water crisis? What would you say to those people?

Speaker 2: 0:03

There have been a lot of missed opportunities along the way to really make sure that we were keeping up with the investments that are needed, and for decades the city has had to figure out how do we keep up and invest in this old infrastructure and do all of the other things that a city has to do Provide good schools, pave the roads, all of those things with a significant disadvantage in terms of the money available by taxpayers.

Speaker 1: 0:29

You're listening to America's Healthiest City on Mike King Biz Radio Network on ESPN Richmond 106.1 and Choice 105.3. Welcome to America's Healthiest City on ESPN Richmond 106.1, part of the Mike King Biz Media Network. This is a channel RVA production. We have a special episode for you today, so stick around. We are interviewing Dr Danny Avula, the mayor of Richmond, and we're going to be speaking specifically today about Richmond's recent water crises, and so I'm super excited about this episode. We hope to be able to clear some things up for folks and hear the take of the mayor. But before we dive in, if this is your first time checking into America's Healthiest City, please learn more about our program at americashealthiestcitycom. We are a 10-year community partnership to make all of Richmond the entire region the healthiest in America by 2033. It takes everybody playing their part, so you can learn what it takes to get involved on our website. But without further ado, I'd like to welcome the mayor to the podcast. Mayor Vula, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Yeah, thank you Will.

Speaker 1: 1:28

Super excited to have this conversation. We do this show the same with everybody who comes on. We start with where you came from. I know you weren't born in Richmond, but you moved here.

Speaker 2: 1:41

So tell us where you came from and what brought you to Richmond in the first place. Yeah, I was actually born in India, in the city of Hyderabad, and my family immigrated here when I was less than a year old, spent the first chunk of my life on the West Coast. My dad was active duty Navy and so we were in San Diego, but ultimately made our way to the East Coast. I did most of my growing up in Northern Virginia. I went to the University of Virginia for college and then moved here to go to medical school in 2000.

Speaker 1: 2:03

So I did a little bit of research and I saw that you actually graduated high school at 16 years old and you finished at UVA with your undergrad at 19 years old. So you were a little faster than your peers. Maybe a little bit of cultural influence there.

Speaker 2: 2:20

No doubt you know, I think the Indian immigrant mentality is like let's just get it done Right, and I get it done. Starting elementary school in California, I remember going to kindergarten and about a week in my mom was like this is a waste of your time. She took me to the principal's office and had me show the principal all these workbooks I'd been working on. He was like, yeah, you can go to first grade. I was young to begin with. I ended up skipping kindergarten and then, you know, by the time I got to UVA, I had had a bunch of high school credits or AP credits, and so was able to finish UVA in three years, but I wasn't ready to leave. I had great friends and a great time in college, and so I actually ended up teaching high school in Charlottesville but living with all of my college roommates before I came here to go to med school.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Yeah, I can imagine that accelerating past your friends can be a bit of a bittersweet, I guess. And you took a question out of my questions here about teaching high school. You only did that for about a year, is that right? Yeah, that's right. What was that like compared to everything else that you've done?

Speaker 2: 3:25

Yeah, I loved it. I mean, I think, connecting with kids at that time of life and I think there's probably something ingrained in me about both the relational side of teaching but also the ability to actually shape kids' lives and move them forward in productive ways, that was really fun. But I was also really young when I did it. I taught at 19 years old and I was teaching an Algebra 2 class. I had kids that were just a year younger than me and so it was a little bit hard for me to find my footing and really assert myself as an authority at that stage of my life. But weirdly, a bunch of those kids have ended up in Richmond. This was over in Charlottesville, but I regularly run into kids that I taught or that were at the school for the year and a half that I was there, which, yeah, it's been really neat to sort of reconnect with them and see them doing well at this point in life.

Speaker 1: 4:20

Any idea on a positive negative impact on your bedside manner as a result of that experience.

Speaker 2: 4:26

I'm a pediatrician now, so clearly it had some impact. No, I mean, obviously, working with high school kids, yeah, teaches you a lot about how to listen well, but also how to coach people along, because you know adolescents. As a parent now of five kids, all of whom are my youngest is 13, you do have to change your strategy a bit, right? You can't be as directive and authoritative, and you've got to figure out how to kind of coach them along, as they're asserting their own independence, and so I learned a lot of that as a high school teacher.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Well, I've got a few doctor questions mixed in here, but you are now mayor and you have been for five plus months now, maybe right about there. You and I spoke back in April about the first time you ever considered running for mayor and it was many years ago, maybe not even considered, but somebody suggested it. Can you tell me a little bit about that story and what changed in April of 2024 that caused you to say I'm going to throw my hat in the ring for this.

Speaker 2: 5:29

You know I have lived in Richmond since 2000 when I came here to go to med school and realized pretty early on in medical school that I wasn't only interested in clinical medicine, that I was much more interested in kind of the macro drivers of health in communities. I was more interested in, you know, how do policy and culture really shape health and health outcomes for communities? And I was really driven by kind of the justice orientation around like why is it that certain communities have worse health outcomes than others? And so I discovered public health at that point in med school and started doing a bunch of different rotations and so that, you know, I ended up charting a different course than most people who go to med school because I realized by the end of med school hey, what I really want to do is work in public health. And so I did a residency in pediatrics, a residency in preventive medicine, and got my master's in public health and started working at the health department and increasingly over my years working in the health department, that work kind of bridged outside of these traditional lanes of healthcare access or, you know, chronic disease work and really started to look at the connection to the social determinants of health, the connection between safe and stable and affordable housing and health outcomes, and the connection between workforce opportunities and meaningful living wage income and how that leads to improved health. And so, yeah, I think in my time as public health director here in the city I got to work across a lot of different sectors and was also pretty civically engaged, serving on a number of boards and doing a lot of work in the community.

Speaker 2: 7:12

And so about 10 years ago there was a point where someone said you know you ought to think about running for mayor at some point. And you know it was a fleeting comment, not something I gave much thought to, in large part because I had zero interest in the political world and actually sort of shifting gears from being a physician and a public health leader to a politician. But what I realized over time was at least at a local level, the city level, the mayor has an enormous opportunity to really shape an agenda and to drive priorities for a city. And so I would say, yeah, even up until last year it didn't feel like anything that I was really considering in a practical way. Right, we had five kids, a bunch of whom were in college or about to head into college and I was like this is not the best time to quit your job, run for office, make such a massive life decision.

Speaker 2: 8:11

But you know, there was this steady drumbeat, you know, towards the end of 2023, of people calling me up, bending my ears, saying, hey, have you thought about this? You know, the city could really use your skill set at a time like this. And so my wife and I really just started to think through this, to discern together, to talk to folks representing different communities and say, hey, does this make sense for us and does this make sense for the city at all? And just like every conversation felt like an affirmation, and so I decided, the kind of late February of 2024, that we were going to do this and announced the campaign in April.

Speaker 1: 8:51

Well, I don't think that there is a candidate for office or an elected official who envies you, Dr Dana Avila. Within a few days of taking office, you were hit with a water crisis. Before we get into the details of that, I wanted to see if you'd take us back to what you remember experiencing in that first week and maybe tell us a little bit about what has changed in your mind in the last five months or so.

Speaker 2: 9:14

Gosh, I have like no memories from before the water crisis. Right, I like whatever. It was a short period of time. I mean, this happened on day five of the administration and I was probably like just getting my email address.

Speaker 2: 9:28

I mean the months leading up to that. You know, I think my predecessor did a really great job of handing off and preparing transition, and so I spent a lot of time post-election but before taking office on January 1st, meeting with the different department heads and really getting my arms around like how does the budget process work and what are the priorities of each of our departments. So there was a long lead up and at the same time, had a transition team that was meeting on a lot of the different issues that emerged during the campaign, and so we were doing a lot of work with community leaders and volunteers who really helped crystallize what some of our priorities should be when we actually started. But then all that got upended on January 5th. And so I mean to the question of how has that shaped the last five and now six months?

Speaker 2: 10:18

I just hit the six-month mark. You know, I think you know I didn't sign up for this job thinking that I would be dealing with water infrastructure or a lot of infrastructure for that matter. But that has definitely dominated my time and my thought and my energy in this first six months, and it's important because clearly, like providing the basics, like water is such a fundamental part of what a local government does. It just it was not on my radar at all as to like what the priorities would be or where I would be spending time.

Speaker 1: 10:51

Yeah, Well, we had the opportunity to interview a number of your transition team members and brilliant folks, so kudos for putting that team together. We do have to take a quick break, but when we get back we'll get into the details. Sounds great. Thank you for listening to America's Healthiest City on Mike King Biz Radio Network. Welcome back to America's Healthiest City, a production of Channel RVA. This special episode is being aired on ESPN Richmond 106.1, part of the Mike King Biz Media Network. We're excited to bring this episode to you. If you're just turning in for the first time, we have Dr Danny Avula, the mayor of Richmond, and we're just getting into the conversation about our recent water crises here in Richmond. Dr Avula, I've spoken with a number of people who've made mention. I don't know how much they're thinking about this, but they've made mention about potentially leaving Richmond as a result of what has happened and maybe thinking are we just a few months away from another water crisis? What would you say to those people?

Speaker 2: 11:49

Yeah, I mean first that I understand the sentiment right, I understand people are angry, they're frustrated. I mean I'm angry and frustrated. This is not what I thought I'd be doing as mayor of the city, but it is the reality of like how we need to best serve the city right now. And you know, infrastructure here in Richmond, but across the cities, all across up and on the East Coast, are having similar struggles as we get to the century plus mark on infrastructure. And you know, I think part of our reality is that we've had a water plant and a water distribution system for over 100 years and there have been a lot of missed opportunities along the way to really make sure that we were keeping up with the investments that are needed. And so I think it's a good reminder and in many ways, you know. Earlier you asked me about how it's framed the first six months of the administration, but I would say in many ways it's framed the entirety of the administration, because we really need to look at all of the aspects of our critical infrastructure and make sure that we are aligning our investments accordingly. Like you know, every person's time in office is marked by a certain number of priorities and there's only so much bandwidth to drive some of those priorities forward.

Speaker 2: 13:15

And I will say, in Richmond's specific case, you know this is a city that was significantly impacted by our local and state-level policy, right, our local and state level policy, right? You think about what happened in the 1950s when, at the federal level, we integrated schools and we saw massive white flight. We saw the wealth of the city go to the counties and then within a few years the city had lost the ability to annex the surrounding counties and to try to recapture that tax base. And so for decades now it's only been a recent phenomenon that people have wanted to live in the city and have been moving back into Richmond. So for decades the city has had to figure out how do we keep up and invest in this old infrastructure and do all of the other things that a city has to do provide good schools, pave the roads, all of those things with a significant disadvantage in terms of the money available by taxpayers.

Speaker 2: 14:14

And you already see big disparities between the tax rate in the city and the surrounding counties. And it's for good reason. It's the fact that we have to do things like keep up our water treatment plant, we have hundreds of miles of sidewalk that we need to repair, that are all in disrepair, that in many ways, are in disrepair as the city grows and trees grow and roots uproot sidewalks, so there are a bunch of additional costs that exist here in the city and I think it's really important for folks to understand the challenges of keeping up a city are really different and that requires more investment, and so that's not an excuse for those who have come before me, but it is a framing of what we've got to be focused on now.

Speaker 1: 15:00

Well, I had a question around. You know whether people would want to maybe move here less as a result of this, but I checked with Chachapiti yesterday about recent news in Richmond. It didn't say anything about the water crisis, so I think you're in good shape there.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Well, and I will say too I think this clearly everybody is feeling it in a very acute way right now We've had a couple of incidents over the last five months that have really shaken people's confidence, and so you know I didn't fully answer the question you asked, but, like I want to both acknowledge and validate the frustration that people are feeling but also convey that we've done a lot to address these issues.

Speaker 2: 15:43

I mean, we have completely changed over the leadership team in our Department of Public Utilities. We now have five professional engineers overseeing that division that weren't here before, a combined 140 years of engineering experience. And you know the work that Dr Scott Morris has done as our new DPU director to look at our standard operating procedures, to actually train our staff and to do drills if there was a power outage. I mean like that's work that just had not really been done for a very long time. And so we are kind of moving down two tracks right, we've got to address the people and the process, and then we've also got to make the investments necessary to really modernize the water treatment plant. And so we've done a lot of that on the front end replacing pumps and filters, upgrading our backup batteries, but there's a lot more work to do, and so Scott has done a great job of mapping out.

Speaker 1: 16:37

You know what does the next five years look like in terms of investments and sequencing, and you know what pace can we actually do full modernization by so thinking about just the magnitude of that initial problem and obviously the work that had to go into fixing that, just for the assurance of the community, all that work was completed, we're good there. No worries on that front, but just broader systemic age.

Speaker 2: 17:06

Yeah, yeah, and you know I mean all of the immediate things that our you know state regulators, vdh, deq, have brought up. In the after action of this we have addressed, and so, you know, we've restored the water treatment plant to stable functioning. But that doesn't change the fact that, yeah, it's a 100-year-old treatment plant. It requires regular investment. As one example, we are supposed to do a master plan for the entire water distribution system about every five years. That hadn't been done for almost 20 years, and so there's a lot of catch-up work that we're doing and thankfully, our state partners are being very helpful in that. But we have addressed all of the acute issues and now we've mapped out the roadmap to really modernize that plant over the next five years, and that's going to be ongoing work.

Speaker 2: 17:59

I'll give a specific example. One of the things that led to the extended water outage in January was the fact that the pumps and the filters were in the basement, and when the basement flooded, that impacted the ability of those pumps and filters to operate. Now one of the VDH recommendations was to bring those pumps and filters up to ground level so that flooding doesn't pose a threat, but that takes a significant amount of investment to redesign the plan, and so that's one of the things that we have to look out over years and say you know, can we do this within the five-year timeframe? Will it take longer? If so, what are our backup plans and how are we going to ensure a certain degree of redundancy if something like that were to happen again?

Speaker 1: 18:47

So you mentioned the new leadership and we've seen a number of announcements on social media recently about some of those new folks. Congratulations on getting that done. Recently we had an excess release of fluoride into the water system and that caused one employee from the water plant to call the Chesterfield Police Department, and I think anybody can probably deduce why they might have made that decision. But thinking about new leadership coming in and staff that you know predates them by maybe decades, is there a cultural issue, a culture issue inside the water department, and what do you think it's going to take if you do think that there is one to be able to make sure that that new leadership can align well with that legacy staff?

Speaker 2: 19:30

Yeah, well, I'll come back to the original frame of the question, which is I'm super confused as to why that was the first call, and even as we went back over to try to figure out like what was the chain of events that led to Chesterfield's police department getting the call, it doesn't quite make sense to me.

Speaker 2: 19:48

But I think your point is well taken that the chain of command, the protocols around communication, are things that we have really needed to work on, and Dr Morris and his team have definitely.

Speaker 2: 20:03

You know they had actually mapped out a new comms protocol that hadn't gone live when that fluoride event happened, actually mapped out a new comms protocol that hadn't gone live when that fluoride event happened. But what we saw in the May Boil Water Advisory was a significantly improved chain of events in terms of communication, not just internally but also with our regional partners. And so, yeah, I think that that's the work right. I mean both. We've got to do both paths of doing the physical investments in aging infrastructure, but also really making sure that there's connectivity between leadership and the front lines, that there are open lines of communication to actually put his deputy director physically on site in the water treatment plant, and so there is a daily rhythm of connecting with the frontline employees, having eyes on what's going on, and so you know. I think that's just one practical example of how you know the new leadership has really approached this differently.

Speaker 1: 21:02

So with the most recent boil water advisory, I know that there were a number of small businesses that were affected by that. They'd ordered new filters, had serviced their water lines and things like that to meet the Virginia Department of Health standards for their operation. I also know that the city set up a relief fund to be able to try to help some of those folks out, but that fund was evaporated within a very short period of time within a very short period of time. Do you think that that was too little and if so, are there further talks now with city council about finding some ways to be able to help those businesses out that might not have been able to get access to those resources?

Speaker 2: 21:38

Yeah, I mean, I was real clear when it happened, like hey, there's never going to be enough money to sort of fill all of the needs that small business and that residents have. Right, because it wasn't just small businesses that were affected, it was people who, you know, weren't able to show up to their jobs because of what happened back in January. You know, I think what we try to do, and what I'll continue to work on, is how do we make sure that we are elevating our small business community? How are we making, you know like, really encouraging folks to go out and support small businesses? And then how are we doing the work as a locality to make small businesses, you know, more profitable and able to thrive in our city? And that sometimes is direct financial assistance, which we tried to do in the wake of January, but is also, you know like, how are we, you know, what grant programs are we offering? But then how are we just making the day-to-day work of interacting with the city a better experience so that people aren't stuck, you know, not being able to, you know, get a permit for weeks on end and that costing their business money.

Speaker 2: 22:47

Or, you know, aesthetic improvements on a corridor like Broad Street. You know, a lot of small businesses have really struggled because of the downturn we've seen on Broad Street since COVID and as we invest more in that aesthetic and doing landscaping and improving lighting, that actually improves opportunity for a lot of small businesses. So our Economic Development Authority is definitely like they've shifted over the last couple of years to really try to figure out how do we support small businesses, how do we make sure that not only are they valued and celebrated as really vital members of our ecosystem here, but how do we bring more opportunity for them to be successful? And the better we run as a government, the better small businesses will do.

Speaker 1: 23:30

Well, thanks for that. We have to take another quick break, but we're going to come back with a couple more questions before we wrap up. Thanks for tuning in to America's Healthiest City. If you didn't know this, my company, exponent 21, is the producer of America's Healthiest City. We don't take sponsorships. We don't take money from anybody to produce this show. We do it as a service to the Richmond community, but we do want you to know who we are and what we do. So if you've not heard of artificial intelligence and optimizing for artificial intelligence, that's exactly what Exponent 21 does. We help our clients rank number one in AI overviews and ChatGPT and other large language models. We do this by publishing wonderful content in podcast format and video format and in written format, and we do it in partnership with you, with a strategy that's designed to win. So if you want to learn more about how you can get your company to rank at the top of AI, visit Exponent21.com and run a free SEO check on your homepage to find out how your site is ranking, how healthy it is and what you might need to do to be able to shore up the technicals and the foundation to be able to optimize your site for AI search.

Speaker 1: 24:47

You're listening to america's healthiest city on mike king biz radio network, on espn richmond 106.1 and choice 105.3. Welcome back to america's healthiest city on espn richmond 106.1. This special episode of our podcast is being filmed from the Mayor's Conference Room at City Hall. We are speaking to Dr Dan Avula about the water crises we've faced here in 2025. I'm going to go right back into it because we're going to run short on time. Today you recently had a joint legislation excuse me, a joint regional water collaboration, which you facilitated. I believe Henrico County was at the table for that. What is your hope for that conversation and do you see that positive outlook at this point?

Speaker 2: 25:28

Yeah, you know, I think obviously our regional partners have a huge stake in our water treatment plant. Right, we serve about 500,000 residents, not just in the city but into Henrico County, Hanover, Chesterfield and Goochland, and so, you know, when the water crisis in January happened, that impacted residents beyond the city of Richmond, and so I think many of our regional partners are asking a very obvious question like what can we do to help and how do we ensure that people have access to the water that they need? And you know, as I've talked about, we have made really significant changes both in leadership and practice and in front-end investment. But the road to full modernization is a long one, right, we're looking at more like a five to 10-year time frame to be able to fully replace out pumps and filters. Probably in the next year or two we need to do a complete upgrade of the SCADA system, the IT system that's kind of the brain of the whole operation.

Speaker 2: 26:28

And so, while we've done a really good job of kind of creating that roadmap and sort of thinking through the sequence, the fact remains that more money will help this situation. More investment will help this situation. Not only will it accelerate the pace of modernization, but it, partners in the region and and potentially even from the state, that, the more that helps us achieve those two outcomes of ensuring safe and sustainable water production and protecting the rate payers in the process. And so, yeah, I see I'm super optimistic about the region all being aligned around those outcomes, about the region all being aligned around those outcomes. And now the details are in. Can we actually figure out a way that the region feels like they've got some skin in the game and they've got some oversight and ability to help manage the process moving forward?

Speaker 1: 27:36

So with a couple of minutes, we've got less left. As we look to the future, you mentioned Richmond has other challenges beyond the water infrastructure. You're obviously gonna be focused on those things with your team as you think about the broader community. What are some things that you think the city, the citizens of the city, should be thinking about and doing to contribute to making this region the healthiest in America by 2033? What could they do?

Speaker 2: 27:59

Yeah, well, I think about health pretty broadly, as we've already talked about. As a public health doc, you know the connections between housing and workforce and income and education. I mean all of these things are so vital to a thriving community. But there's also an element of social and relational connection, and I think that you know the time that we're in the political context that we're living through, the fact that social media seems at every turn to be trying to separate us and divide us. I mean, my biggest plea to people would be to really think about how are we showing up for real people, real human beings, and how are we leaning into building those relationships and building the kind of community that we all want to be a part of. And that takes some intentionality, particularly in today's day and age, to reach across the political aisle or to break outside of your comfort zone in a particular community that you've grown up in and really lean into human relationship. I think that's one of the most important things we can do to become a more healthy and thriving community.

Speaker 1: 29:08

So you say I shouldn't have honked my horn at that guy this morning. Well, I could sit here for another half hour and ask you more questions. I've got more here, but to respect your time and our listeners, we'll wrap it up. But thank you so much for sitting with us. I really do appreciate this and I think Richmonders will appreciate this as well. Absolutely Great to be with you, Thank you.